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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27034978">nostalgia/streetlights</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourthdimnsion/pseuds/fourthdimnsion'>fourthdimnsion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Better Call Saul (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Mild Language, Post-Season 4, Proof Read Once, maybe i was venting but who knows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:01:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27034978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourthdimnsion/pseuds/fourthdimnsion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's pretty funny how nostalgia it's an unexpected and easy way to lead Jimmy into his unpacked grief.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chuck McGill &amp; Jimmy McGill | Saul Goodman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>nostalgia/streetlights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so i've been thinking a lot about this concept, and i kept wondering why their dynamic is so complex and the reason that deep down they don't go along that easily and... i still didn't got an answer, but damn this was really interesting to work on. </p><p>this was proof read once. hope you enjoy (?)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nostalgia is a terrible feeling when the context is more relevant than the feeling itself. When the sunny day was bright and a smile was bigger than its cheeks; when a step was made and a confident decision turned solid; when there’s a familiar, strong and firm hand on your shoulder reassuring you of a place to be in when things don’t go right and there’ll be always the next day to follow in. </p><p>Jimmy flies. He flies as fast as the falcons that once flew above his head, his thoughtful head trying to find a way to ease a punishment and let two stupid boys survive for another day. Another day passes, another week, another month— And suddenly it’s the next year, the next two years. Still, he flies within time, within the night that it’s still a child. </p><p>The only thing that makes him a little centered on his purpose to go back home is the radio, playing old songs from Bee Gees and Cheryl Lynn whose he passionately sang along with. Singing was grounding, it somehow makes him believe in what was going on in any situation and that’s what focuses him on achieving the goal; either he just likes to sing and hear his lovely voice reach tones whose he didn’t know he could, yet still he did. </p><p>That grounded him. But when the last notes from “Got To Be Real” started to fade slowly in the radio and a voice came after later, telling the listener what time it was, a song came right in the next moment; and Jimmy didn’t even had the moment to disassociate the melody from the memory, because both of them appeared out of the blue over both his tongue and his head. </p><p>For the first time ever that he could actually feel it outside the numbness of crying until he cannot think clearly, “The Winner Takes It All” made him feel physically sick. </p><p>Jimmy even wanted to frown, to curse under his breath for the thought— </p><p>But all he did was to stop flying and stop under the red sign above his head, hands on the steering wheel as strong as the odd feeling bubbling inside his stomach. He felt as if he was about to vomit inside his car, but the mere idea of it was fucked up because he’ll be hella busy cleaning it. Yet, the thought was inevitable as much as the nostalgia kicking in. </p><p>The sign turned green above his head and he followed, but didn’t sing. He didn’t sing along, afraid that this might consume him more than the everyday shit reaching his neck, more than the tears suddenly starting to gather on the corner of his eyes for no reasonable reason. Even though, <em> really</em>, it’s impossible to not think about Chuck. That asshole that he’d mentally and verbally cursed, cursed, cursed enough to not think about how he misses him to a certain degree. In a place where his mixed feelings are brewed into something abstract to relate and refer to when he considers talking about it, but he never — ever — wanted to talk about it with Kim, genuinely saying. Just let it as a thought, a draft on his mind that can be enough as much as talking or dealing with it, quite like paperwork. </p><p>Jimmy sighed with a hell of a weight on his lungs. It suffocates him, sometimes. Until now, he didn’t thought of anything that would go along with the thoughts of hatred and loving, of caring for more than a year and breaking it all within months, days, or even an afternoon whose he was so sincere that it assimilated as leaving his anger exposed to his brother in a silver plate like a fancy meal. He did— That’s what angered him the most. He did and he was let down; he was more than once willing to jump on a cliff, hoping that somehow that wouldn’t be as damaging as the regret of not doing it or the will itself of doing it. And more than once he was proven wrong, more than once Chuck has made sure that he’s nothing but the silhouette of his own shadow, the blurrest of it. Jimmy thought what would be a fantasy more than many times, and somehow the daydreams were the most perfect, lucid dreams compared to the fucked up reality he has made up for himself. </p><p>For once, he may believe that Chuck was right. That’s when he entered a curve that wasn’t on his roots to Kim’s apartment. </p><p>Salt contaminated his tongue when a tear dropped from his eye, and then another one, and another that made him press his lips together. He didn’t want to think about the details; of crying, of tasting salt, of driving in circles instead of going where he should be, in the safety of a place that wasn’t exactly <em> his</em>, but Kim had made him so welcome not only there but in her arms and in her company that he claimed it. But isn’t right to go right away and tell it, tell that isn’t his, tell that nothing is his. Something escalated quickly from one place to another, but that was the only way to summarize what he’s by looking at the night sky. Stars, the moon, buildings so far away and streetlights. It’s so big, enormous above his eyes. He had expectations, he had dreams, he had people’s eyes looking at him hoping that he would become better; he had nothing else at all. </p><p>Because— What Jimmy McGill is in the middle of this vast metropolis? </p><p>When he looks at his back and then at his side, the same seat where he’d took Chuck outside with a suit on and the space blanket under it — <em> fucking brilliant idea coming from him and he deserves credit for it </em>—, he remembers how it was sunny. The blue sky that had no horizons and the sun shining in, the green of the trees of his house — that nowadays aren’t nothing but burnt, lifeless greys — that he’d avoided to go outside and appreciate because of his condition. It’s fucking sad when he thinks about the details, but it’s beautiful at the after; the various claps at HHM from everyone whom respected him. Whom looked after him, the soul and maybe the heart of the firm. The someone else that Jimmy isn’t and won’t be anytime soon or anytime he’s sane, he’s alive and on his shoes. </p><p>Jimmy tasted salt on his tongue, and it was overwhelming to be hit in this way. </p><p>The second — not literal second as far as he can think of — red sign made him stop on his roots. It allowed him to sink further in his seat and grip tighter on the steering wheel. There’s anger on the crescent ravelling of his stomach, whose he fully believes that he’ll vomit anytime sooner because of this damned nameless and mixed feeling created inside him, but there’s a parcel of sadness that he cannot admit that easily. He doesn’t accept it right away as he accepted Chuck’s death so quickly that he’s almost scared— <em> Almost </em> if Chuck’s last words didn’t break him in a way that no one else did. </p><p>In the midway, the brief moment of pause where time might go and you excuse that later you’ll catch it later, you can foresee that someone might catch you instead and do something else with the vulnerability you decide to expose, whether it's deep or not. In the midway, where Jimmy thought about a lasting and friendly relationship with Chuck and thought that, maybe, <em> maybe </em> they can go along with each other despite every hurt made in the process, Jimmy didn’t expect to be caught like this. Right now, he sees the green turn into yellow for a quick round of five seconds before going full red. But back then? He wanted to be on terms with his brother. He wanted to show that he’s sorry, that he regrets, that he wouldn’t do that again. He wanted — he desired — to not be hated by another, maybe the only family member that remained, the only one that isn’t <em> him </em> that had left. </p><p>Jimmy gripped on the steering wheel so hard that he thought it could break. He would scream at his last words and he should’ve done that before if he wasn’t so shocked by that— Because one thing is to cogitate, another one far away and far more painful is all that wondering and false assumptions coming into reality within a soft, calm voice. He could see it happening in the middle of an argument, screaming as the lowest and rawest of their feelings show up. But he couldn’t see — ever believe in — this kind of thing being told in a nonchalant confession, almost if someone’s telling how’s the weather and then going away easy. </p><p>He didn’t wipe his tears, although it’s humiliating to see himself in this state for someone that had told him that he isn’t that much. The words got out blurred, even. His vision was blurry enough to keep going, and he should be careful even after all the things that had passed in front of his eyes; after being in the desert and lying and lying and then telling the truth to someone that had more power than a mere knife on his hands. It’s about the words, maybe. It’s about how he had gone low and how Chuck might’ve not been there to witness all those times, but simply guess it by knowing him ever since birth. It’s about being in the lowest and feeling like he’d never, ever, got out from there. Instead, he went along with and now lives and will craft his legacy here. </p><p>Maybe — at that point, ABBA wasn’t something influencing him anymore and Jimmy simply managed to discern both within his own brewing anger and sadness —, Chuck didn’t like him at first and at last. Didn’t actually like his next steps, didn’t like where he would go being in the same workspace, sharing the last name. Didn’t like being his sibling when his younger brother was slippery, insincere, and everywhere he’d go he would be the old brother of that bastard attorney. Maybe. That’s Jimmy’s thoughts, not something Chuck had said so openly loud and so expressively telling. Maybe he was wrong, maybe Chuck had something, a hope to hold on that lent him into being just a little bit proud of his little brother, no matter what department he goes, no matter what he does. </p><p>What’s left, after all? Charles McGill stays as the brilliant man every lawyer knows. Chuck, however, leaves being the brother that Jimmy somehow believes that deserved, and deserved every last word he had heard, all the legacy that hid heartbreaking words that now were on his shoulders while being the last McGill remaining, this time for true. And all the eyes are on him, but all he sees is Chuck’s eyes, guarding him when he’s not there anymore. </p><p>The song is ending, and that— That’s enough radio for now because he didn’t want another one to make him feel nostalgic, to remember him the greatests moments that preceded the sad and the pain, the cry and everything else. The details, hell, his voice that’s normally hoarse, but when it comes to singing ABBA turns into gold, and when Chuck follows? The perfect duo. And it vanishes. Jimmy’s fingers are rightly placed on the radio so he can turn it off quickly; yet, appreciating a little of that nostalgia, the bittersweet ending that follows after the amusement, the amaze. The day that they sang together and he didn’t want it to end that sooner than he lived, but it did anyway. </p><p>Jimmy wiped his tears when it ended. </p><p>Time began to go on, but he didn’t fly anymore. He ascended slowly, driving on his way back to Kim’s— <em> their </em> apartment. After a few minutes, he stopped in the parking lot and looked above him, not seeing a sight of her drinking and thinking absentmindedly. He got out, walked upstairs and, before getting in and saying a warm “hello” to Kim as he always does, he stopped midway only to look beneath him. His Esteem, another house, streetlights.  </p><p>Jimmy sighed, tired, leaving behind what was told and untold, unable to go back to change or either live again. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading</p></blockquote></div></div>
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